DURING the global coronavirus pandemic, The Harlow Hotel by AccorHotels team has done their very best to provide a safe place for key workers and local vulnerable people.

Since the lockdown was announced, they have been working closely with the NHS to accommodate extra staff that have been required to help deal with the outbreak and those needing to shield to protect their own family members.

The entire team understands that this is a very difficult time for all key workers and vulnerable people so everyone has stepped up by providing the safest environment with the maximum of service. These last few months seem to have flown by for all of them.

The team at the hotel have gone through different stages and mind sets as explained Emilie Dengremont Marceau, the General Manager. They first went into a state of shock! The hotel was restricted very quickly to key workers only and they had to see many guests leave, who could not could stay due to the new restrictions.

“On one day, we were offering a full service hotel and next day all outlets were closed! We then quickly found a way to make the place even safer for our remaining guests as well as for the team. So many questions were coming to our minds – how to serve breakfast? Which signage to adapt? What would people really need? Who will do what? When ? Where? How? The list was endless but we managed very swiftly to adapt as a team and with the constant support of Accorhotels and our owner company Proark.

Emilie explained that once the adaptation phase was over, they started to move to the amelioration phase, learning from everyone’s feedback, they improved their offers. The team started a daily scrapbook to share and remember their stories and feelings during this unprecedented time.

With time passing, relations and complicity started to raise between team and guests as everyone was here together. Everyone was making sure to have a nice and comforting word to each other daily. The hotel celebrated a guest’s birthday on 10th of May with gifts and cards. The staff have joined the rest of the town and the country by taking the time to decorate a window in the hotel to add colours to our façade and everyone’s heart, in support to our local heroes.

The hotel has also continued building on their relationship with local authorities and charities to provide accommodation for those in need.

Nikki Neighbour, the Harlow Hotel Well Being Ambassador, shared with us that the team will soon undertake a new challenge by travelling the 597 miles which separates the 6 hotels owned by Proark. “We had this idea as we could not go and physically visit our colleagues from our sister hotels. We then decided to turn this frustration into a positive energy with the use of an exercise bike from our leisure centre to simulate this journey. This is helping improve our mental health and remove the few pounds we all gained somehow during the lockdown.”

We are now entering the last month in what has been such a special time and the hotel hope to be able to open to a wider public from the 4th of July following on the government guidelines.

Emilie finally added : “I am so grateful that we were able to stay open during the whole time. We are now more than ready to move to the next step and welcome even more people, all with safe measures in place. I would like to take the opportunity in thanking all our partners who put their confidence in us by letting us accommodate their colleagues and guests, but also to my team who have been open to changes and quickly adapted to a new way of working: Nikki, Kelly, Lauren, Claudia, Alice, Kim, Oxana, Trevor, Cliff, Alan and Dan.

This would not have been possible without everyone’s support and dedication. I have seen over these last few months such an overall positive spirit, despite the circumstances. Harlow has joint forces and has shown being such a caring community and we are delighted to be able to be an active part of it.”